New musical immerses audience in song and gang leader banter: review

Updated February 13, 2018 at 10:37 AM;Posted February 13, 2018 at 10:30 AM

"Razorhurst" is a world-premiere musical featuring the ghosts of two ruthless female gang leaders from early 20th century Australia debating their crimes and legacies in a contemporary coffeeshop populated by the show's audience. (Christopher Drukker)

"Razorhurst" is a world-premiere musical featuring the ghosts of two ruthless female gang leaders from early 20th century Australia debating their crimes and legacies in a contemporary coffeeshop populated by the show's audience.

That's a mouthful, and a lot to wrap one's head around in this 90-minute show at West Orange's Luna Stage, but there is much to enjoy in this promising offering from Kate Mulley (books and lyrics) and Andy Peterson (music). The conceit can be confusing and the music wavers from dramatic and gripping to formulaic and uninspired, but once "Razorhurst" finds its footing -- about a half an hour in -- the show proves a compelling meditation on the explosive cocktail of gender, class, and power underlying an infamous period in the history of crime.

Kate Leigh (Catherine Fries Vaughn) was a powerful bootlegger in Sydney's 1920s underworld that grew bustling after the government enacted a series of vice laws. At the same time, Tilly Devine (Claire McClanahan) worked her way from streetwalker to madam to proprietor of a Sydney brothel empire. Their business interests might not have crossed paths, but their competing desires to be queen of Sydney's gangland fueled a bloody war in the streets.

"Razorhurst" examines this story in retrospect, as Kate and Tilly put each other and their competing legacies on trial. Brian Dudkiewicz has transformed Luna's blackbox convincingly into a coffeeshop where audience members can buy drinks and cupcakes and mingle before curtain, and then sit among the two performers in the playing space during the show. For reasons that are never quite clear, Kate's ghost shows up and Lilly's soon follows, and the two begin to have it out about how they ought to be remembered. Their banter is sharp, frequently funny, and unapologetically lewd (I'd offer a few examples, but this is a family publication). Kate fancies herself a Robin Hood figure; Tilly has no delusions of how she got herself to the top. During all of this the performers address themselves directly to the audience, as if trying to sway a jury of coffeeshop patrons.

What brings these ghosts to this coffeeshop or why customers are there after hours is all pretty unclear, but once the show gets past its own framework it finds space to grow more impactful. Its best moments are when these two grizzled crime lords become more human and vulnerable. The gruesome and gritty details of the Razor Wars move quickly into the personal cost of waging war for both women. Tilly's marriage is particularly vexing, and Kate withers piteously at the realization that her decisions had disastrous repercussions on the life of her daughter. The show's songs, full of bouncy melodies and plenty of bland rhyming couplets, become more engrossing and persuasive when its characters are at their most introspective.

The same is true of Vaughn and McClanahan, who are far more convincing as ghosts haunted by their own pasts than as flippant and coldhearted crime bosses.

A two-hander about true crime with piano accompaniment at Luna cannot help but recall the theater's stunning 2015 production of "Thrill Me," a comparison that does few favors for "Razorhurst." But this show has room to grow and develop around a fine nucleus. Loose around the edges to be sure, "Razorhurst" finds some great moments of passion, power, and pain.